Category: authors
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A Wire of Freedom
The timeless theme of freedom meanders through Emily Arnold McCully’s trilogy about Mirette and Bellini. In the first book, Mirette on the High Wire (1993), her young protagonist feels free when walking the wire. Perhaps she’s freed from the grueling domestic work she does in her mother’s boarding house. We never see Mirette at school…
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Musical Prose: Jonathan London
Occasionally, I discover an exceptional picture book at a library sale. It’s the only place to locate books with illustrations that are fine art paintings nowadays. Red Wolf Country (1996) with pictures by Daniel San Souci was such a book, and so I took it home. Thank goodness because it introduced me to the sound…
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Companion Biographies by Allen Say
In his speech at the 2011 National Book Festival, Allen Say mentioned two autobiographies. The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice (1994, Houghton Mifflin Company) is for readers in middle school and above. It’s a chapter book of 149 pages and has no illustrations. Drawing From Memory (2011, Scholastic Press) is for the older elementary school age student. It…
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Kindness and Stone Paper
The Lonely Mailman (2016) and A Mystery in the Forest (2020) are two stories about kindness published on Stone Paper. I sure hope that Susanna Isern and Daniel Montero Galán team up again to create more heartwarming picture books. A badger (I think it’s a badger) rides a bicycle to deliver mail to animals in…
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Sandra Louise Woodward Darling
A friend pulled Carl’s Afternoon in the Park (1991) from a bookstore shelf and said, “You’ve got to see this.” That was in 1992. What fun it’s been finding books by Alexandra Day ever since. Carl is an enormous Rottweiler that looks after a child while his owners are away. The idea for this series…
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Praise for Patricia Polacco
Thank you, Mr. Falker (1998) was the first book I read by the amazing Patricia Polacco. This story is about a girl who has trouble learning to read. In first grade, “when Trisha looked at a page, all she saw were wiggling shapes, and when she tried to sound out words, the other kids laughed…
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